Getting home proved to be a bit more of an adventure than we had planned, but generally the roads were in better condition than they could have been.

Before we left the lower mainland it was decided to take up the generous Canadian Tire offer to rotate my tires for free - which came with the purchase of my new tires last summer. So we took care of that and headed east. We did not make it very far on the highway however as the Trans Canada highway was closed between Chilliwack and Hope due to some mud slides blocking all lanes. There was a fairly painless detour over to highway 7 on the north shore of the Fraser river.

The Coquihalla highway was more or less dry all the way, though there are still large snowbanks in the upper elevation areas. The river flowing down to Hope was really running at flood stage with water the color of dark coffee.

Roger's Pass approach from the west was getting pretty ugly as far as visibility goes, but there was only a short slippery section at the summit, and good driving down the east side on bare roads.
So we were pulling in to Golden and I was promising Harley that he would be home in an hour. That is until the highways crew in town told me the highway was closed in the Golden canyon for the night due to mud slides and avalanches! Not really a big deal since we were still set up for camping, notwithstanding the winterizing of the water system in the camper as we left the coast. So we pulled off on the first side street and were set for the night in no time.

It was a bit of a change to discover the windshield covered in ice and snow in the morning, but the sun came out for a good look at the Kicking Horse ski area across the valley.


















We visited a friend for breakfast and coffee, bought some groceries, and the road was open so we headed for home.





























There was still a 30 minute delay in the canyon while they scooped crap off the road,















but we managed to pull into our recently cleared driveway (Thanks parks highways crew) around noon and start unloading.







It was not long before a wild snow leopard was spotted walking across the hot tub lid.